Pretty Little Liars by Sara Shepard

Publication date: October 1, 2006

# of pages:  286

Genre: Young Adult, Romance, Mystery & Thriller

Pretty Little Liars, written by Sara Shepard, is the first book in her popular series called Pretty Little Liars. The book is fictional and intended for a young adult audience. It is also a very popular TV show series titled the same as the series. I have only watched the first season of this show. This is the second book I have read by Shepard. The first one being The Lying Game, a first installment in another series, which you can see the review of here. I love the way that Shepard’s novels pull me in to where I feel like I have to finish them. And Pretty Little Liars was not an exception to that.

Pretty Little Liars deals with friendships and secrets. The main friendship deals with four living girls and one we’re not really sure about her living status.

Spencer, Emily, Hanna and Aria are the four that we know for sure are alive, Alison (a.k.a Ali) is the fifth girl. Alison, Aria, Emily, Hanna and Spencer were all friends up until Alison’s disappearance. No one has no idea what happened to Alison. The story is told through four POVs; Aria’s, Emily’s, Hanna’s and Spencer’s. Through them we learn the friendship between each one and Alison, how each one feels about Ali’s disappearance, and how their lives have changed since she’s been gone. But most of all we learn about the secrets that each one has that only Ali knows, and how they never have to worry about those secrets coming out as long as Ali isn’t there to share them. At least that’s what they think until they start getting texts, messages and emails from someone simply named A. Is it Alison or is it someone playing a joke?

I absolutely loved this book. The title enticed me because I thought, “What could be so pretty about a liar?” From the title, I assumed the book would deal with secrets and I was right. I enjoyed learning about the girls’ secrets and how big of a role Alison played in their lives. I totally understood how the remaining four girls ended up drifting apart once Ali disappeared. I mean I’m pretty sure we all had a friend whose friends became our friends, but once we weren’t friends with that person anyone we were no longer friends with the others neither. I couldn’t imagine leading the lives of Hanna or Spencer, but I felt like I related to Aria the most. She’s weird and smart, but fun. She seems to be the mature one out of the group. I plan to continue with the series. I actually have a buddy read set up with a friend from a GoodReads [link to GoodReads website] group I am in to read the next book in the series later this month. So if you would like to know more about the Pretty Little Liars series look out for my review of the next book, Flawless.

I would recommend this book to anyone who (1) likes a little bit of a thriller without all the gory and action, such as fighting and people having to be killed constantly; (2) reads young adult novels; and (3) has watched the TV show based on this book as it is nice to learn a few background things about the characters that is hard to display on television and to see how the producers and directors changed some things from the original plot.

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